Re-opening the American mind

Twenty-five years on, a re-read of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind reveals just how wrong liberals were to hate it, and how wrong conservatives were to claim it as their ideological bible.

Read my review, in the spiked review of books, here.

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The border crisis has brought chaos to America Joe Biden has shown how much can go wrong when a government gives up on enforcing its border (Spiked)
The year America became a banana republic Joe Biden’s Democrats have weaponized the security state to attack their enemies and protect their friends (Spiked)
You can’t beat anti-Semitism with "diversity" training The DEI ideology is fuelling the explosion of Jew-hatred in elite US universities (Spiked)
Why Jewish lives don't matter to BLM The Hamas apologism of Black Lives Matter activists has exposed the twisted, hateful logic of identity politics (Spiked)
The Democrats are taking parents for fools Parents are still being kept in the dark about schools’ indoctrination of their children (Spiked)
Joe Biden's racial totalitarianism His latest “equity” scheme will usher in a grim new era of woke discrimination.
The Loudoun County cover-up reveals the moral depravity of woke A schoolgirl was raped by a “genderfluid” boy – and her school covered it up (Spiked)
Joe Biden and the rise of respectable authoritarianism In 2022, the Democrats proved themselves to be the real threat to democracy (Spiked)
Biden's handout to the affluent The president’s cancellation of student-loan debt is a bribe to his professional-class base (Spiked)
Joe Biden: the world’s most dangerous trans activist The US president is using the full force of the state to promote this divisive and damaging ideology (Spiked)
Parents are still being treated like terrrorists The US educational establishment is waging a vicious culture war against families (Spiked)
Loudoun County and the cruelty of trans ideology A girl was sexually assaulted at school, in the girls’ bathroom, by a boy in a skirt. The school covered it up (Spiked)
The fightback against critical race theory American parents have had enough of this divisive ideology being imposed on their kids (Spiked)
After the Floyd verdict: the US is not a racist dystopia George Floyd’s killing united America in outrage. But some want to use it to keep us permanently divided (Spiked)
Why the cancellation of Dr. Seuss matters This is not some confected culture-war spat. Woke zealots want to purge culture, and they’re succeeding (Spiked)
Biden will bring woke to the White House Joe Biden is as committed to wokeness as any Democrat. He has no inclination to resist its rise (Spiked)
Portland has been given over to the mob Cowardly politicians let the protests spiral out of control (Spiked)
Why John Lewis didn’t want the Edmund Pettus Bridge renamed Civil-rights leaders were too busy making history to worry about bridge names and statues (Spiked)
In defence of Bari Weiss More people need to take a stand against the Great Awokening (Spiked)
Who's behind the war on statues? This mob iconoclasm is being encouraged by America’s self-loathing elites (Spiked)
A woke coup at the New York Times The sacking of the opinion editor, over a controversial op-ed, confirms that the NYT is no longer a bastion of liberalism (Spiked)
America on fire – and out of control The descent into chaos reveals a failure of moral and political leadership (Spiked)
Why the Sanders "revolution" failed He wasn’t too populist. He wasn’t populist enough (Spiked)
This is an abuse of the power of impeachment The vote to impeach Trump is a cynical attempt to subvert democracy (Spiked)
The race-washing of American history The idea that all of our ills stem from slavery is revisionist history that helps no one (Spiked)
Oberlin and the price of wokeness An American college has discovered that PC mobs don’t always get away scot-free (Spiked)
The truth about Parkland New investigations reveal the cowardice and incompetence of police and local officials (Spiked)
Trump-Russia: the birtherism of the left The collapse of the Russia conspiracy theory exposes the hysteria of the modern media (Spiked)
Why the elites are cheating The college-admissions scandal reveals much about modern America (Spiked)
No, Trump is not "erasing" trans people Defending the biological reality of sex should be welcomed in these confused times (Spiked)
The Kavanaugh aftermath: what we learned Liberal values must be defended anew (Spiked)
"I believe" – an irrational cry The bottom line is: there is no evidence against Brett Kavanaugh (Spiked)
One year on: the real problem with Trump No, he isn’t a tyrant. But he is seriously degrading political life (Spiked)
#MeToo is a menace to democratic politics Now Washington is falling to this puritan panic (Spiked)
After Charlottesville: stand up to racial thinking The far right must be challenged, but not with identity politics (Spiked)
The lessons of the Rebecca Tuvel witch-hunt Let’s learn from this ugly, censorious mobbing (Spiked)
100 days of anti-Trump hysteria The Trump administration is a joke, but so is “the Resistance” (Spiked)
Obama is not your saviour Sean Collins on the cult of Obama and the crisis of American politics.
Revenge of the deplorables Our US correspondent on Trump and the death of the establishment (Spiked)
Neither Trump nor Clinton Our American correspondent on why neither deserves your ballot (Spiked)
Trashing the white trash: Hillary and the new bigotry Clinton’s attack on “deplorables” reveals an ugly prejudice (Spiked)
The end of the Grand Old Party Trump’s rise confirms the alarming decay of the Republicans (Spiked)
Trump: a monster made by PC The elite can’t fight The Donald because it unwittingly created him (spiked)
Trump, Sanders and the new American populism These two candidates are shaking up a staid political life. Good. (spiked)
Treating Trump supporters like an exotic tribe The bigotry of elites who sneer at those who back The Donald (spiked)
The University of Racial Indoctrination The rise of the race therapy complex on campus (spiked)
Rachel Dolezal: Desperately seeking victim status The Dolezal story exposes the disturbing influence of identity politics (spiked)
Boycotting the boycotters: The wrong way to oppose BDS Clamping down on BDS will only fuel its intolerant campaign (spiked)
Riots in Baltimore: A crisis of authority The instability points to a moral vacuum in America’s inner cities (spiked)
Selma 50 years on: Why King's dream still matters Today’s new racialists are judging people on the colour of their skin (spiked)
This ban is a fracking outrage New York’s ban on fracking is an act of pure green elitism (spiked)
Rolling Stone and the myth of a rape epidemic Rolling Stone’s rape hoax speaks to a new hysteria on US campuses (spiked)
After Ferguson: no, the US is not "congenitally racist" The shooting was terrible. But so is the fatalism of much of the response (spiked)
The Democrats are running on empty The US midterms exposed the Obama administration’s utter exhaustion (spiked)
Berkeley vs Bill: FSM turns in its grave After the Bill Maher debacle, Berkeley needs a new Free Speech Movement (spiked)
A not-so Sterling attack on free speech The LA Clippers owner has been hounded out of the NBA for a speech crime (spiked)
Fight for the right to fraternize Frats are taking the rap for the non-crime of rape culture (spiked)
The purge of gay-marriage heretics begins The ousting of Brendan Eich from Mozilla because of his views on gay marriage sets a dangerous precedent (spiked)
Marijuana and the myth of libertarian America The new pro-dope consensus is more authoritarian than liberal (spiked)
Gay marriage's echoes of the Cultural Revolution Politicians publicly renouncing their former beliefs, the youth raging against the elderly… the SSM campaign has eerie echoes of history (spiked)
Israel-bashers: masters of the double standard Radicals who protest against the censorship of anti-Israel academics cheer with hypocritical glee when Israeli academics are banned (spiked)
America: the decline of politics, the rise of tribes Bush was booed for chasing after the votes of certain racial and cultural groups. Obama is cheered for doing the exact same thing (spiked)

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Re-opening the American mind

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